The one "positive" I see in that chart is that concert revenue is up. I attribute that to already-established acts jacking up the price of their tickets to make up for lost albums sales. That's hardly anything to cheer about.

It's pretty easy to spot an obvious b.s. factor in the study this chart comes from. The study claims that the decline in recorded music sales is offset by total revenue from "the new business models such as streaming and subscriptions" -- but the bulk of that revenue doesn't go to the musicians creating the music; it goes to the internet companies that provide streaming services. In other words, the study's authors are trying to pull a fast one, claiming that everything's hunky-dory with the music industry and pointing to the revenue received by non-music internet companies as supposed proof of this assertion. If you were to count only the actual revenue going to music creators, that happy little line of the chart wouldn't be nice and level; it would be plummeting sharply down. This "study" is obviously biased b.s.

I've seen a study that showed people who pirated music, generally also purchased more music than the average consumer. Piracy isn't hurting music sales as much as other items competing for the same finite entertainment dollar today, which did not exist 40 years ago. Things the industry would rather not be mentioned on this subject - such as video games and home video to name 2.